Lightening the Load of Site Supervisor 'Daily Reports' with Scanning — The Future of Progress Management
Lightening the Load of Site Supervisor 'Daily Reports' with Scanning — The Future of Progress Management
The other day, I was talking with someone in charge of DX at a civil engineering company. The theme was the management side's request to 'know progress more accurately.' ...Or so it should have been, but as we talked, we ended up discussing the 'work style of site supervisors' rather than the precision of the numbers themselves. Today, I'd like to write about that realization.
To begin with, what is 'progress'?
In simple terms, progress is a number that represents 'how far the construction has advanced.' How much has been excavated, how much has been poured, how far has it been assembled? Without knowing this, billing to customers, internal cost management, and decisions on the next steps cannot function smoothly. You can think of it as the foundational data used for billing, costs, and process decisions.
And this progress, in fact, still relies heavily on human confirmation and manual input in many situations. Site supervisors walk around the site, take photos, take notes, and return to the office to compile them into daily reports. It is a modest task, but one that continues every day.
The honest dilemma of the management side
From the management side, they want to know the progress as accurately and frequently as possible. If they know the progress, it becomes easier to plan arrangements, billing, and cost forecasts.
However, there is a dilemma here. With the current method, the more you try to increase accuracy, the more effort (man-hours) it takes. If you try to count finely and accurately, the number of times you check the site and the time spent compiling it will increase. On the other hand, if you cut corners, the numbers will be rough. It is a state where 'accuracy' and 'effort' are always playing tug-of-war.
But the real 'first priority' was elsewhere
What was interesting was that the person said, 'The first thing I want to tackle is not the accuracy of the progress itself.'
The first priority of reform is to reduce the 'non-core tasks' of site supervisors—tasks other than their original decision-making work. To lighten, even a little, the work that is important but not their primary job, such as creating daily reports and compiling numbers. This is not just about efficiency, but also a theme that connects to work-style reform and personnel measures, they said.
In the background is a serious labor shortage. Site supervisors are already busy. If the retirement of veterans and the difficulty in hiring are added to that, the burden per person will continue to increase. That is why 'how to make the work style of these people even a little better' becomes the real goal of DX. Before improving the numbers, make things easier for the people. I really sympathized with that order.
Picking up progress 'on the side' with point clouds and AI photos
So, what should we do? This is the approach we are working on.
The site supervisor records the site with a handheld device like an iPhone, as usual. AI looks at the point clouds and photos to pick up 'how far it has progressed' and creates a 'draft' for daily reports and progress/quantity organization. For example, it uses information remaining in photos and point clouds, such as the scope of excavation, changes in finished shapes, and the installation status of materials. Instead of writing from scratch, the supervisor only needs to check and correct the generated draft. Of course, the final quantity and progress are based on the premise that a person confirms them. Tasks that do not remain in photos or point clouds, and quality judgments, require separate confirmation.
The important thing is not to automate everything from the beginning. It is realistic to start with 'assistance' for recording, progress confirmation, and quantity organization. Civil engineering sites are outdoors and large, and there are pros and cons depending on the target and type of work. There are also situations where higher-precision surveying is required. In those cases, rather than covering everything with just a smartphone, you choose tools according to the purpose and combine them with dedicated surveying where necessary.
By doing this, the dilemma mentioned earlier and the talk about work styles will move forward at the same time. If you can reduce the effort of counting, it will be easier to grasp the situation more frequently than before, and at the same time, the supervisor's non-core work will also be lightened. You can loosen the tug-of-war of 'increasing accuracy increases effort' a little.
However, this is not a story about 'replacing' site supervisors
There is one thing I want to make clear. This is not a story about replacing site supervisors with AI.
What AI does is strictly drafting. It is people who perform the final check and make the decisions. The goal is not to take away the supervisor's job, but to change 'writing from scratch' to 'checking and correcting,' returning the freed-up time to their core duties. Thinking about scheduling, overseeing site safety, talking to people—we want them to spend their time on the work that only people can do. We want to be the tool that makes that possible.
Therefore, what we want to do
Labor shortages are becoming an increasingly heavy theme at many sites. In that context, the purpose of DX should not just be 'producing clean numbers.' If someone is struggling with daily reports late into the night to create those numbers, lightening that burden is one form of DX that would be truly appreciated. I felt that once again at a civil engineering site.
If you are at a site like civil engineering, renovation, or exterior construction where creating daily reports and organizing progress data is a heavy burden, and you find yourself thinking, 'Can we lighten this somewhere?', we welcome even such initial consultations. For more details, please feel free to visit onetech.jp.
Tools do not exist solely for the sake of numbers. They exist to make the day a little lighter for the people working beyond them. Today, too, we will make it a day that lightens one more burden at the site.
WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY TODAY!